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EEMAEKS 



ON THE 



EXISTING REBELLION: 



ITS CAUSE— THE DUTY OF SUPPRESSING IT— THE 
OBJECT OF SUPPRESSING IT— A CONSERVATIVE 
MOVEMENT— THE GOVERNMENT TO BE PRESERVED 
—THE PEOPLE TO BE COMPELLED TO OBEY THE 
LAWS AS FREEMEN— DISFRANCHISEMENT OF 
REBEL MASSES IMPOLITIC. UNNECESSARY. 
DANGEROUS— A VIRTUAL ABANDONMENT 
OF LIBERTY— A SETTING UP OF ARBI- 
TRARY GOVERNMENT. 



BY AN ORIGINAL REPUBLICAN. 



ST. LOUIS: 

PRINTED AT THE DISPATCH OFFICE, CORNER OF THIRD AND LOCUST. 
1865. 



'St 



EEMARK8 



OX THH 



EXISTING REBELLION: 



ITS CAUSE— THE DUTY OF SUPPRESSING IT— THE 
OBJECT OF SUPPRESSING IT— A CONSERVATIVE 
MOVEMENT— THE GOVERNMENT TO-BE PRESERVED 
—THE PEOPLE TO BE COMPELLED TO OBEY THE 
LAWS AS FREEMEN— DISFRANCHISEMENT OF 
REBEL MASSES IMPOLITIC, UNNECESSARY, 
DANGEROUS— A VIRTUAL ABANDONMENT 
OF LIBERTY— A SETTING UP OF ARBI- 
TRARY GOVERNMENT. 



BY AN ORIGINAL REPUBLICAN. 



5^^\^ C*|oV«/ 



ST. LOUIS: 

PRINTED AT THE DISPATCH OFFICE, CORNER 0? THIRB AND LOCUST. 
1865. 






> ? 



s 






THE REBELLION. 



We are now in the fifth year of the war inaugurated by Southern slaveholders 
against the peace of a prosperous and happy country. 

It is hazarding little to say that it is one of the most causeless wars in the 
history of mankind. The rebel leaders were made satisfied by the popular 
election of 1860 they could no longer control the political administration of the 
nation ; and for this reason they broke its ancient and sacred peace. They 
knew a majority of the people were opposed to the perpetuation of an unright- 
eous institution ; and they determined not to abide the people's will. 

As long as the rebel leaders controlled a majority of votes, they respected the 
principles of free Government, under which we had lived so long and so 
happily ; and they appealed to those principles to uphold their official power 
and political influence. But as soon as they saw the votes were against 
them, they repudiated popular liberty, levied war, fired on the flag of their 
country, and excited and drove the unthinking masses of their section into 
rebellion. It was after Abraham Lincoln had been elected President of the 
United States that Alexander Stephens declared his " settled convictions" 
that the national Union " came nearer the objects of all good Government 
than any other on the face of the earth." 

"It is, said Mr. Stephens, "the best andfreest Government, the most equal 
in its rights ; the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, 
just in its decisions, the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the race 
of men that the sun of heaven ever shone upon." 

It was after that event that Jefferson Davis spoke as follows : " Our fathers, 
learning wisdom from the experiments of Rome and Greece, the one a con- 
solidated Republic, the other strictly a Confederacy, and taught by the lessons 
of our own experiment under the confederation, came together to form a 
more perfect union, and in my judgment made the best Government that has ever 
been instituted by man." 

The Southern people had suffered no oppression. They had themselves 
assented to every law upon the statute book. In all the manifestoes which 
the rebel leaders put forth, they mentioned nothing which is entitled to the 
least respect. They did indeed assert that the majority of the people had 
placed themselves upon the record in opposition to slavery ; and to prevent 
the free discussion of the subject, and to arrest that fair and lawful course of 
the popular will in regard to it, they persuaded, cajoled and drove their 
people into revolt. ■ 

Whether the war be looked upon as a war for the perpetuation of slavery ; 
a war against the free expression of political opinions; a war to arrest the 
course of popular will in legal and constitutional form expressed; or a war 
for the personal aggrandizement of ambitious aspirants, it is unparalleled in 



wantonness and>ickedne 8 s. The future historian having aearched in vain 
for the justification to cover this insurrection against the " best Government" 
"ever instituted by man;" having failed to raise for the conduct of Jefferson 
Davis & Co., on a review of our whole history, civil, political and religious, 
even a semblance of palliation, will be compelled to find its exemplar, not in 
the>ecords of civilized nations, but among those piratical States of Barbary 
or those savage hordes* of Asia, who, proclaiming the principles of despotism 
have openly rejected and despised all the rights of their fellow men. Never 
was any Government called upon by higher duties to resist a rebellion. The 
cause of resistance was the cause of law, of liberty, of humanity. The 
rebellion, odious in its feature of wantonly disturbing the peace; of recklessly 
embruing its! hands in blood ; odious in its feature of setting at defiance the 
great cardinal principles of popular government ; odious in its features of 
vaulting personal ambition, is yet more odious in its characteristic feature of 
secession. Secession, the right of a State to secede from the nation! The 
right of a county to secede from the State ! A township from a county ! A 
neighborhood from a township! The right of a criminal to secede from the 
law, tn assert exemption from duty, immunity for crime! This monstrous 
heresy has nothing in it that is good, but embodies every political error and 
every social evil. It is destructive alike of government, society and the 
domestic relations. To resist it was a duty not of revolution, but of conservatism ; 
and the means of resistance was defined by the purpose— that purpose to 
save, to secure against perishing, the noblest structures which exist in the 
world. To maintain by every means the very greatest interests that was 
ever confided to rulers, ft was thus the nation came to this work of resis- 
tance and preservation. And ihus it is the work is to be accomplished, if ever 
under God it is to be accomplished at all. 

The great duty which devolved upon the Administration at Washington when 
it came into power on the 4th of March, 1861, was the preservation of the Gov- 
ernment with peace if consistent with its safety and honor, but the preservation 
of the Government at all hazards, and by the use of every energy of war if 
necesssary. 

If the rebellion woul'2 not yield without force, then the Administration (and 
by this all departments of Government are embraced) was bound to use force 
to put the rebellion down; to remove away the causes that produced it; to 
maintain the supremacy of the laws, and restore the authority of the civil 
functionaries. This was their whole mission. They had no other. 

It was a grand spectacle when the loyal millions rose up with one mighty 
will and mighty enthusiasm to perform that work of conservatism and restora- 
tion; the maintainance of laws, the restoration of peace. And right nobly 
has the nation borne itself amid all the vicissitudes of the continuing struggle ; 
every day, and every menth and every year of which has developed more and more 
the national power, and more and more circumscribed the limits and lopped 
away the stays and crushed the hopes of the rebellion. Slowly but surely 
the military life of the enemy seems sinking into the grave. 

The world looks on with cold indifference. No sympathetic hand is extended 
to aid. No word of pity is uttered to console. In vain the "Confederacy" has 
knelt and begged for recognition— for countenance at the bar of nations. The 
nations have spurned the crawling mendicant from their bar. The stern and 
inexorable language of the nations to Jefferson Davis & Co., ia this: "You 



6 

are the only people, Bincc the world began, who hare proclaimed a purpose, 
a fixed, deliberate purpose, to lay the foundation of the State upon the slavery 
of their fellow-men. We loathe your principles. We spurn your petitions." 
And this is right. It is right in the sight of man. It is right in the sight 
of God. 

There is such a thing as truth upon the earth, and no man can hide its 
light, and millions of men cannot crush its power. 

The attempt of southern slave holders to overawe the spirit of the nation, 
and defy the sense of mankind, by interpolating slavery into the moral code 
of the world, was a crime hardly, less flagrant than when fiends did seek 
to scale the battlements of Heaven. Great was the offence, and dreadful has 
been the rebuke. It was rebuked by the majestic uprising of 1861, when 
twenty millions of freemen united to denounce the atrocious sentiment. It has 
been rebuked upon more than one hundred fields of battle ; where those who 
came to propogate„their new gospel by the sword found only bloody graves. It 
has been rebuked by scenes of devastation and suffering over which the heart 
sickens, and humanity vainly attempts to draw the veil; and it has been not 
less signally rebuked by the solemn judgment of the civilized world, which has 
ever pointed at the guilty, shameless thing "the slow, unmoving finger of its 
scorn." 

Yet the humiliation of the secession movement is not fully told. The slavery 
perpetuationists repudiate>t last the principle of their own action. They 
deny their own published and vaunted motives ; they eat their own bitter words. 

It is not slavery, forsooth, for which they fight ! They never wished to 
perpetuate slavery ! They are emancipationists ! They have no difficulty even 
on the question of political power to emancipate ! They find it in the clause 
of the Montgomery Constitution which provides that "no law denying or 
impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall ever be passed by, the 
Confederate Congress." Art. I, Sec. 9. 

Behold how the principle of the war, the motive that induced it, the very end 
it sought, has vanished ! What a tremendous revolution is here ! How much 
more have the insurrectionists to yield before they can submit to "the best 
Government that ever has been instituted by man ?" 

Yet a little while and it would seem their armies must cease to exist. Al- 
ready the rebellion lives but at a single point. In Richmond are congregated 
an army and a number of persons calling themselves the Confederate Congress. 

Another number of persons there call themselves an Executive Department. 
And this is the Confederate Government. It holds dominion over Richmond and 
Petersburg. Outside of these fortified places, there is nothing which it may 
truly call its own. The moment this army is dissolved or captured, in that 
same moment the organization known as the "Confederate Government" 
ceases to exist; and as soon as the " Confederate Government" ceases to exist 
the laws of the United States are again the lawful and only rule of action 
everywhere in the national domain. 

It would seem to be the plainest suggestion of reason that when this state of 
things is reached the Union is maintained ; the Government of the United States 
is restored, so far as force can do it. 

The Government of the United States was overthrown, in the seceding sec- 
tion, by forcible resistance to it, there too powerful for the execution of the laws 



6 

by civil functionaries. If, therefore-, you beat down, remove'out of the way, or 
destroy that forcible resistance, you'', leave; the people and the civil officers free 
to act ;"and you necessarily restore the Government, so far as it is possible ever 
to restore any Government, baaed on the popular wilLf! All popular Government 
rests upon the fundamental idea that the people, left to their own free will, have 
virtue and intelligence enough to see and do what is right and best for their 
own interests. He who denies this proposition denies the whole theory of 
popular liberty. Let us never lose sight ofjhis great truth ; and it will relieve 
us of all the doubt and perplexity which surrounds the policy of reconstruc- 
tion. 

"The best form of Government ever institutedTby man" has, during our 
present troubles, been menaced by two dangers: First, that the rebel power, 
aided or alone, might prove too strong for the nation. Second, that, amidst 
the excitement incident to the contest, the principles of liberty would be for- 
gotten, even by its own friends, and a new Government would result, based 
upon arbitrary power. 

If it be a fact that the first of these is passing away, there is yet no such 
assurance in regard to the second. So true is it that one extreme almost inva- 
riably begets another, it seems that not secessionists alone would now repudiate 
liberty. 

These painful reflections are forced upon us by a series of political events 
which have transpired during the last year, and which indicate, to an alarming' 
degree, the unsettling of the public mind, with reference to doctrines once 
universally admitted in this country. I allude to those frequent declarations 
of leading citizens, and resolutions of popular meetings, and efforts of legisla- 
tion and constitution making, to the effect that large masses of the American 
people, lately participating in Government here, are unfit for free institutions, 
and henceforth to be excluded from the right of suffrage. 

A convention of delegates, assembled for remodeling the Constitution of 
Maryland, finished their work in September last by incorporating among others 
the following provisions : 

" Sec. 6G. No person who has at any time been in armed hostility to the United 
States, or the lawful authority thereof, or who has been, in any manner, in the 
service of the "so-called Confederate States;" no person who has voluntarily 
left this State and gone within the military lines of the so-called " Confederate 
States " or armies, with the purpose of adhering to said States or armies ; no 
person who has given any aid, comfort, countenance or support to those engaged 
in armed hostility to the United States, or in any manner adhered to the enemies 
of the United States, either by contributing to the enemies of the United 
States, or unlawfully sending within the lines of such enemies, money, good?, 
letters, or information, or who has disloyally held communication with the ene- 
mies of the United States, or advised any person to enter the service of said 
enemies, or aided any person to so enter, or by any open deed or word declared 
his adhesion to the enemies of the United States, or his desire for the triumph of 
said enemies over the armies of the United States, shall ever be entitled to vote at 
any election to be held in this State, or to hold any office of profit, honor or trust under 
the laws of the State." But the prohibition shall not apply to one who afterwards 
"voluntarily entered the service of the United States," and was "honorably 
discharged," or shall be so in said "service on the day of election," or shall 



have been " restored to his full rights by a vote of two-thirds of all the members 
of the General Assembly." This Constitution was submitted to a vote of the 
people of Maryland, and has been proclaimed duly ratified. 

A Constitutional Convention, now sitting in the State of Missouri, at St. 
Louis, have agreed upon an ordinance which improves much upon that of Mary- 
land — adds both to the causes of disfranchisement and the classes of persons 
who are to suffer its penalties. 

It includes everything which the Maryland ordinance contains, and, in addi- 
tion, embraces adherents to the "foreign and domestic enemies" of the United 
States, every one who, by "act or word manifested" adherence to them, or 
" sympathy " with those " engaged in exciting or carrying on rebellion ;" who, 
save under " overwhelming compulsion," "submitted to the authority " of the 
Confederates; who has been a "member" of any "society, order or organ- 
ization inimical to the Government of the United States or to the State ;" or 
engaged in "guerrilla warfare against loyal inhabitants of the United States," 
or "bushwhacking," or "knowingly and willingly harbored, aided or coun- 
tenanced" such; or come into this State or left "to avoid draft," or "enrol- 
ment in the militia," or "to escape performance of duty therein," or " authorized 
himself to be enrolled as disloyal," or a "Southern sympathizer," or "in 
other terms, indicating disaffection to the Government in its contest with rebel- 
lion," or "sympathy with those engaged in rebellion," or has "voted at any 
election," or "held office in the United States or Territories," and has after 
" sought or received, under claim of allegiance, protection of any foreign 
government exemption from military duty." 

Besides political disfranchisement, the Missouri ordinance prohibits the 
offender from being " an officei', councilman, director, trustee or manager of 
any corporation, public or private, now existing or hereafter established," or 
acting as "professor or teacher in any educational institution," or holding 
"real estate or other .property in trust for the use of any church, religious 
society or congregation." 

But these stringent provisions, it is generously declared, shall not apply to 
any person who committed such act or thought while he was not a citizen of 
the United States, and in some foreign country at war with the United States. 
It is possible that the Convention may yet modify the foregoing provisions. 
If so, the changes are likely to indicate only a fiercer spirit of proscription. 

On the 16th of December last, Mr. Ashley, from the Select Committee on 
Rebellious States, reported to the House of Representatives in Congress "A 
bill to guarantee to certain States whose governments have been usurped or 
overthrown a Republican form of government." 

The bill provided for holding elections in all the States embraced by its title, 
with a view to re-establishing government therein. The elections to be held 
" by the loyal male citizens of the United States of the age of twenty-one 
years," "but no person who had held or exercised any office, civil or military, 
State or Confederate, under the rebel usurpation, or who had voluntarily borne 
arms against the United States, should be eligible to be elected at such 
elections." And in case any person who had borne arms against tne United 
States should offer to vote, he should be deemed to have borne arms voluntarily, 
unless he should prove the contrary by a qualified voter. 

The bill was lost by a small vote, and is most certainly not abandoned. 



8 

These events sufficiently indicate the scheme which the party, known as Rad- 
icals, have devised for the basis of reconstruction. It is believed they can if 
they will, carry it out. Their spirit prevails now in the Executive Department 
a. V, ashmgton ; their partizans will be more numerous in the next, than in the 
last. Congress. By such manipulations and appliances as the War Department 
s able to supply, the execution of the plan may be regarded as not only possi- 
ble, but probable, in the near future. The means which secured the Maryland 
ordinance of disfranchisement did not fail of success in Missouri; and the 
power to procure similar ordinances in every rebel State, or to pass Mr. 
Ashleys bill whenever desired, may be conceded. 

The wisdom of such a policy is by far the gravest question now pending 
before the American nation. The danger of the movement, if there be danger 
in it, is imminent. The relief from that danger, if it come at all, must come 
from the "sober second thought" of the people. 

What then, in brief, is the effect of this policy? Why to exclude from all right 
of suffrage, representation and office-holding, some four or five millions of the 
masses of the people lately co-operating in the Government of the United 
States. 

The disfranchisement will reach a large portion of the white population in the 
border States; and almost the entire white population of all the States lying on 
the Gulf and Ocean. This disfranchised population will embrace a fair propor- 
tion of the intelligence of their section, and, in point of activity and courage, a 
people not inferior to any in the world. They inhabit a vast extent of territory 
teeming with the elements of national and individual wealth and power. The 
proposition is to cut off these people from all participation in the future conduct 
of their Government, and yet maintain, by such means as we can, our authority 
as governors over them. 

The first suggestion that rises to the mind in view of this astounding problem 
is, that never before, in the history of the civilized world, has such a project 
been put in execution. Never has any such thing been attempted. Whether 
you look to the history of Europe or America, you find nothing of the sort what- 
ever. There is no portion of history clearer in its details or more satisfactory 
in its teaching than that which relates to these civil commotions, insurrections 
and rebellions. All governments have suffered from them. Nor is it likely that 
mankind will soon become so perfect as to be free from that spirit of faction 
which creates them. Civil wars, always bitter while they last, have ended in 
one uniform way,— one party or the other is conquered in the field, its military 
power broken, its means of resistance destroyed. As soon as this takes place 
the people who have previously clung to the fallen party, if permitted do so, 
abandon it, give in their adhesion to the victors; and become the most obedient and 
humble subjects of the ruling power. The war of the American Revolution serves 
as an illustration. It lasted seven years and resulted in the separation of the 
American Colonies from Great Britain. The course of the Tory party, or those 
who rallied to the King, was marked by unrivalled barbarity. But when our 
fathers had captured the King's armies, and driven away his fleets from our 
coast, they did not disfranchise the Tories. They did not prohibit them from 
taking part in the elections ; our fathers did not pursue the fallen and humbled, 
that crouched beneath their feet, with policies or feelings of revenge. But 
when the was was over, they wisely suffered its strife to cease. 
Succeeding the American Revolution, and partly inspirtd by it, darkly and 



9 

fiercely rose that of France, altogether the most awful scene of modern ages. 
It came like the bursting of a volcano, and its "waves of blood and fire rolled 
over nearly the whole earth. For almost thirty years France — indeed, nearly 
all Europe — endured the mortal agonies of that convulsion. On the dreadful 
fields of DeLigne, Quartre Bras and Waterloo, the star of Napoleon waned and 
went down. The Empire passed away, and France renewed her allegiance to 
her ancient Kings. But does the historian tell u» that any laws were passed to 
disfranchise every Frenchman who had borne arms against the Bourbons, or 
held communication with rebels, or sympathized with treason? Not at all. 
Let us briefly consider the facts of the Hungarian rebellion of 1848. There have 
been few insurrections against lawful authority for less cause — none ever called 
forth deeper resentments. The house of Hapsburg, a proud old dynasty of three 
hundred years, found itself unexpectedly confronted by a hostile popular move- 
ment of tremendous proportions. The conspiracy pervaded every part of the 
Austrian dominions, but in Hungary reigned supreme. Great concessions were 
made to appease the spirit of revolt, but were made in vain. The Austrian 
monarch wag driven from his capital, and his Government brought to the very 
verge of destruction. From first to last a half million of men were under arms. 
After every resource of its own had been used and exhausted, the Austrian 
monarchy was saved from impending fate by the intervention of Kussia, and by 
that alone. On the 17th of June, 170,000 Kussian veterans, led by the Prince 
Paschewitz, entered Hungary, by way of the Carpathian Mountains, and fell 
upon the rear of Gorgey's colunSfc, then pushing forward to Vienna. So great 
an accession to the Government side turned the scale against the rebels. Still 
they fought desperate battles, and often their armies were crowned with victory. 
More than fifty thousand Magyars fell in these latter conflicts, but, before the 
following September, the last of their fortresses was evacuated ; and the last 
of their armies surrendered at discretion. Fourteen of the insurrectionists were 
brought to trial by court martial, and suffered on the scaffold. Mr. Allison 
adds : " Here the severities of the victorious Government ended. The inferior 
officers and private soldiers were all dismissed, without punishment, to their 
homes. No massacre of common men took place. Seventy thousand of the 
rebel soldiers, after a short interval, entered the Austrian service, and have 
ever since remained faithful to their colors." 

It is difficult to see how the conquered party could act in any other way. 
To pursue the contest was to present their naked bodies to the sword. To sub- 
mit was the necessary consequence of their position. The Hungarians did 
receive the Emperor's amnesty ; did submit; did renew their allegiance; did 
vote at elections ; did participate in the Government of the nation. 

It would be quite as difficult to discover a rational motive on the part of the 
victors to prevent the conquered rebels from renewing their allegiance — from 
submitting themselves again to the laws of their country. Every civil war 
originates in the fact that a portion of the citizens of a Government resist its 
authority — refuse to obey its laws — and attempt to overthrow them by arms. 
The existence of civil war implies a precedent civil contest, wherein the insur- 
gents sought to attain some end through the regularly appointed action of 
Government, and in which they failed ; and, so failing, resorted to arms. 

What, then, is the legitimate purpose of a Government in resisting insurrec- 
tion? Undoubtedly to compel the insurgents to lay down their arms, and 
return to those appointed modes of action which are acknowledged by the 
Government. 



10 

The civil war in which we are involved grew out of an attempt by a political 
party to carry an election, in which they failed. It was their privilege to use 
the elective franchise, as appointed by the laws. It was their duty to submit 
to the result of the balloting, as declared in the lawful mode. When, therefore, 
they are beaten in arms they are forced back to their former just rights and 
duties as citizens; the right to use, as formerly, the ballot box; the duty to 
submit, as formerly, to the result. 

Unless this is true it follows that the suppression of the rebellion necessarily 
includes a change in the form of government. Unless it is true no rebellion is 
suppressed until the form of government is so altered as to cast out from its 
fold all who have stood in opposition to it. 

Shall the right of popular suffrage be rejected from our system of liberty 
because our enemies have endeavored to destroy it ? 

The United States, prior to the rebellion of 1861, was a Government based 
upon the fundamental idea that the people are the original source of all its 
power ; and that these people shall exert that power by means of suffrage, and 
through representatives whom they select under the laws. 

But if, when the military power of the rebels is effectually put down, and all 
their means of resistance taken away, they are forbidden to renew their allegiance, 
and excluded from all political influence, it is plain that it is not the old, but 
a new Government, to which they are made subject. 

In that case, the old Government, against which the rebels rose, and which 
they sought to destroy, was not destroyed by them, but has, in fact, been 
destroyed by its own friends. 

Carry out this policy already adopted in Missouri and Maryland, and put 
forward by Mr. Ashley and others in Congress, and the Southern people, 
embracing from four to six millions, will be sunk to a position lower than that 
of the struggling masses of Europe a century ago. Every privilege hitherto 
enjoyed by them as freemen will be taken away. Not only so, but since it is 
impossible to deprive one man of liberty without making one or more men his 
masters, you cannot adopt this policy without setting up an arbitrary Government. 
You may call it a Kepublic, as Mr. Ashley does, but that does not change its 
quality. It is in principle monarchic or aristocratic. The character of the 
whole proceedings is manifest, and not to be disguised by any abuse of terms 
or palliated by any motives which its friends may avow for it. 

You commence the war confessedly to maintain free institutions; you end it 
by overthrowing them; you commence the war confessedly to preserve the 
liberties of the people ; you end it by crushing the liberties of five or six 
millions of these people ; you commence the war confessedly to maintain the 
Government of the United States ; you end it by destroying that Government 
yourselves. 

An attempt is sometimes made to distinguish between the two sections of the 
country with reference to maintaining the Government of the United States. 
A gentleman recently remarked: "You must admit that even in the event of 
the disfranchisement of the Southern rebels, and the establishment of an arbitrary 
Government over them, the North would still represent the Government of the 
United States and remain a free people !" The remark shows how little reflection 
the most intelligent persons give to the gravest questions. It belongs not to 
our system of liberty, but to the most violent and stubborn forms of feudal 



11 

despotism. Such Governments recognized the doctrine that power and slavery 
are inseparable. They conquered -whomsoever they could, and whomsoever 
they conquered they chained often literally to their chariot wheels. 

A Republic can make no conquests save such as may consist with the spread 
of its own free principles. There is no objection to conquering the rebels in arms 
against our Government. We must conquer them. Unless they lay down their 
arms we must utterly annihilate them. But when they have laid down their 
arms, and renewed their allegiance, the conquest is over. 

A Government resulting from the war, with suffrage and liberty in the North 
and disfranchisement and subjection in the South — with a people in the North 
governing themselves by the ballot box, and a people in the South ruled over 
by Satraps, Pro-Consuls, Military Governors and Provost Marshals: — would be 
a political monster, as unknown to any system of free institutions in the world 
as to our own forms of Constitutional freedom. 

This plan of governing the South would throw into the hands of the President 
the largest power and patronage ever entrusted to man. The liberties, lives 
and property of the people would be with him. The agents to be appointed by 
him would be innumerable. These agents, by whatever title designated, would 
have under their appointment countless other agents, while swarms of aspirants, 
sycophants, expectants, hangers-on of every quality, would throng the courts 
of these satraps, and choke up every avenue of justice. No official, no personal 
responsibility could belong to such a system of administration, but disregard 
of the laws, duplicity, fraud, extortion, rapine imprisonments without cause, 
confiscations and seizures from unworthy motives, and every form of oppression 
would be inseparable from it. 

He who cannot comprehend this is ignorant of the fact that unlimited power 
is sure to be abused, and that the instincts of ambition, avarice, lust and revenge 
yet reign in human hearts. How long would it take the virus of such a 
loathsome disease upon an extremity of the national body to poison the whole 
body? Once established in its place, in what manner could it be removed? The 
tendency of all such evils is to grow ; to magnify their pretensions, and increase 
their power. Mr. Burke declared that the corruptions of the British colonial 
system in India reached back to England, impressed itself on Parliament, and 
threatened the liberties of the nation. 

The same great statesman, on another occasion, averred that when three 
millions of people in a State should be perfectly subjected to the power of 
arbitrary rulers they would be "fit to make slaves " of all the rest. 

"If," says the immortal Montesquieu, the profoundest writer who has yet 
appeared on the science of Government, "a Democratic Republic subdues a 
nation in order to govern them as subjeets, it exposes its own liberty, because it 
intrusts too great a power to those who are to govern the conquered provinces." 

In order to justify this policy of wholesale rebel disfranchisement, its advocates 
never cease to dilate upon the crime of the rebellion. They insist that the 
rebels of all sinners are the greatest. They pour forth just praises upon the 
Government of the United States, recount all its merits, remind us of the 
prosperity of the country, the happiness of the whole country, North and South, 
just prior to the outbreak of April, 1861, and do not fail to array before us, in 
all their sombre colors, the national and individual misery attributable wholly 
to these rebels. All this is true. There are no greater criminals, they are 
traitors ; and for this guilt the lawful and merited punishment is death. Be- 



12 

sides, the guilt of the whole black catalogue of consequential crimes connected 
with treason and war wickedly waged is on their heads. But what then ? Shall 
free Government be abandoned, and liberty become a myth, for this ? God 
forbid ! No crime that any people can commit is sufficient to deprive them o-f 
the rights of men. Why did we emancipate our slaves ? Their ancestors, in 
Africa, were robbers and murderers, who captured, bought, sold, killed and ate 
one another. Pro-slavery writers have always contended that such crimes 
justified the- enslavement of the race. But we have rejected this doctrine. The 
Republican party maintain that slavery is wrong ; that there is no cause sufficient 
to warrant it ; no justification for it. 

If the crimes of men are a sufficient warrant for despotism, no Republican 
Government would ever have existed. Liberty would have fled from the earth 
when the first man insulted with base ingratitude the Beneficient Being who 
created and blessed him, and rejected, in a moment of guilt and passion, the 
joys of Paradise. But his Divine Master did not, in consideration of this 
monstrous offence, close the door upon him. On the contrary, he left open the 
door, and invited the return of the culprit the moment when his reason and his 
conscience should lead him back to the path of duty. 

We hear a great deal now from our able statesmen, not only of the magnitude 
of the crime of the rebellion, which, it seems, is much worse than any that 
man could possibly commit against his Maker, but also of the perverse obstinacy 
with which the rebels maintain their hostility to government. We are told that 
persons who, for no sufficient cause, have evinced such enmity toward government 
can never be trusted. And the authors of this argument think they propound 
it in a most pungent form when they declare that their experience has taught 
that " once a rebel, always a rebel," is the only safe rule. The fact 
is, however, that the supposed rule is no rule at all, and the foundation on 
which it rests is entirely false. 

The nature of man, the history of his race, individually and collectively, 
proclaim its folly. Our daily experience shows it to be false. 

Men go into rebellion, as they go into any other adventure, for certain 
opinions they entertain, or certain feelings which they acknowledge. They 
hope to accomplish a purpose. They fail. They abandon their opinions. Their 
feelings change. Whenever this occurs, they cease to be rebels. Men are 
governed by motives in this as in other matters. If the rebels are 
overpowered and beaten in arms, it becomes a matter with them, if you let 
them, to sue for peace. It is their interest to lay down their arms and renew 
their allegiance, and the maises of every people, under such circumstances, if 
encouraged to do so, have abandoned opposition to their conquerors. Take the 
history of the British Islands, and you will find it teeming with rebellions. Any 
one who shall run over the index of Hume and Smollett, and the continuations of 
their history, may count not less than thirty in the period commencing with the 
troubles at Runnymede, and ending with the accession of George the Fourth. 

It is impossible to deny that at one time or other every grade and class of 
the people of these islands have been insurrectionists against lawful authority — 
rebels, traitors. But does this prove that the people, who so made themselves 
rebels once, were always rebels ? Or that, by having been rebels, they were not. 
longer fit for free government ? Or that they should have been disfranchised, 
and excluded from all political influence as fast as the several rebellions were 
brought to a close ? If so, the conclusion would be that none of the British 



13 

people were fit for liberty ! The British Government never took that view of 
the subject. It is believed that the masses were always permitted to renew 
their allegiance on a solemn oath of fealty and abjuration as soon as they were 
ready to do so. Amidst the convulsions of internecine war, the British people, 
to their honor be it recorded, continued to cherish liberty, and to-day we look 
back to their sea-girt islands looming up above the everlasting waves that break 
around them, and not less remarkable for the storms of human passion which 
have swept over them for a thousand years, for the models of our wisest laws 
and the spirit of our noblest institutions. 

The rebellion of 18G1 was a great crime. But it would be difficult to prove 
that great crimes are never committed by people who are fit for free government. 
Is there not a large number of wicked people now in the loyal section of the 
country ? Is there not among us a large number of people whose loyalty is 
undoubted, but who manifest scarcely any other virtue or fitness for the 
discharge of political duties ? How many of the common people of the South 
are rebels merely because they happened to reside there in 1860-61 ? How 
many in the North remained faithful to the Government merely because they 
chanced, at that period and since, to reside there ? How many have absolutely 
been compelled to join in the rebellion from fear of death or loss of their 
estates, or from the possession of social or political influences, or from imbecil- 
ity? Answers to these questions must show how illogical it is to infer that 
persons who have identified themselves with the rebellion, under whatever 
circumstances, are unfit for free Government; or even hostile to the United 
States, or that, if opportunity was allowed, would not honestly renew their 
allegiance. Those who have had the hapjriness to reside, during these troubles, 
in what is called the " Border States " have been able to gather many interesting 
facts tending to illustrate the question in hand, as well, perhaps, as the 
profoundest philosophical speculations. They saw the inception of the seces- 
sion movement. They have watched the progress of the controversy to the 
present time. They have marked the good effects of more dispassionate 
reflection on some ; the influences of official patronage on others ; the power 
of trade on others ; the prestige which attended the continually increasing 
successes of the Union cause in those States on others, and they have seen, 
aside from the progress of our arms, how potent energies have constant!}' 
wrought to convert the original secessionists into friends of the Government. 
They have seen many who were lukewarm at first, or advised neutrality, 
or denounced the President's first call for troops, become zealous supporters 
of Government — and many who at first took arms against us, either abandoning 
the rebel cause, and remaining quiet, or taking sides with the Union armies in 
the field. They have seen more than this. They have seen original secessionists 
aspiring to political positions in Conventions and Legislatures, and taking the 
lead in the most stringent measures of disfranchisement against every one who 
has at any time indulged even a rebellious thought. 

One is at a loss which most to be amazed at in those who clamor for a general 
disfranchisement of the rebel masses, their utter ignorance of all the teachings 
of history on this subject, or the unchristian temper which they display. 

Contemplate but for a moment the statement on which their whole scheme 
rests; that is, that no rebel can possibly reform ! That when he takes the 
most solemn oath he cannot be believed ! That all such declarations are hypo- 
ritical ! That when he joins the Union army, and places his life between his 



14 

Government and its enemies, he is only a spy ! In other words that none of 
these erring and misguided people shall ever return to their allegiance, even if 
they desire to do so ! Not only so, but if any man has ever had a thought or a 
desire of rebellion in his heart-even though he discarded the wicked thing 
before it had produced a single action, or been communicated to a human being 
that man is a veritable rebel, and hi. guilt is so great as to admit of neither 
pardon nor extenuation! Reflect that those who hold and propogate such 
sentiments are Christian men, believers in the religion of Jesus, proposing 
to conform their lives to His example ! 

Two such political documents as the Maryland and Missouri ordinances of 
disfranchisement are not to be found elsewhere in the records of modern civil- 
ization. They breathe the very worst spirit of persecution. They rival the 
vindicative fierceness of tyranny as displayed in its most approved examples. 
When Dyonisius, the tyrant, put Marsyas to death for dreaming he had cut his 
throat, he was no more illogical than the Missouri and Maryland Radicals 
Marsyas denied that he had ever intended' to cut the tyrant's throat, but Dyon- 
isius assumed that Marsyas could not have dreamed about it in the night unless 
he had thought about it in the day, and so put him to death 

Our Radicals assert that whatever one has done, or wished to be done at one 
time, he wishes to do now, and act much like Dyonisius. Both the Missouri and 
Maryland ordinances proceed upon the inquisitorial purpose of dragging to 
light for punishment the secret thoughts of the mind! A practice which it has 
been fondly hoped had disappeared forever. They require every citizen who 
offers to vote to declare whether or not he ever did in his life indulge a secret 
wish in favor of the rebellion. If he avows that he had such a wish, for a 
moment his vote is rejected ! If he says he never had such thoughts, he can 
vote, unless his oath is disproved. ' 

_ It is not what the man has done, but what he has once thought of doine- it 
is not what he is, but what he has been, which draws down upon his head this 
inquisitorial vengeance. For, they say, he never shall reform I 

The result, practically, of this will be, that those who are honest enough not 
to commit perjury will not vote ; while nearly all who disregard their oaths will 
vote! But this is not the only absurdity of such a prohibition. Unless the 
rebe lion is put down, the law which is intended to exclude from suffrage the 
rebel population cannot be enforced, and the law is useless. And if it is nut 
down, so that this law may be enforced, every other law may be enforced as 
we 1, and there remains no longer any cause of fear on account of secession 
and no rational motive for disfranchisement. 

This brings us to the question whether or not rebels, even if we are not fully 
assured of their sincerity in taking an oath of allegiance, may not safely be 
allowed to vote after the suppression of the armed rebellion. Whence then 
comes this unmitigated horror which many sincere persons express at the 
suggestion of rebels voting ? Upon what is it based ? It has been the continual 
practice of every people, among whom popular suffrage obtains as a permanent 
institution, to allow such persons to vote after rebellion has been suppressed on 
a solemn oath of allegiance and abjuration. 

If the practice has not been attended with any serious difficulty in France 
Austria, Prussia, Spain or England, nor heretofore in the United States, when' 
at tbo close of the Revolutionary war, the whole Tory party were acknowledged 



15 

as citizens, entitled to all the rights aruT privileges conceded to the Whigs of 
. that day, we are authorized to believe that the objections which have been 
urged against it are rather imaginary than real. On a most careful considera- 
tion of the subject, no solid ground can be found on which to infer that serious 
injury could result from allowing them to vote. 

It has been said that if they are allowed to vote, they will pass unconstitu- 
tional laws, get up new ordinances of secession, and we shall, from such causes, 
have the war right over again. This is just about as probable as that the 
Tories of the Revolution, in 1783, would attempt to setup the King's Government 
in America, after his armies had been captured. Men who are defeated and 
disarmed do not desire to renew the conflict without arms. To expect such a 
thing would be to look for a miracle. Motives as strong as the love of life and 
the dread of death would lead in an opposite direction. 

The odium which would attach on the secession movement after its final 
defeat, and the ignominious execution of its leaders as traitors to their country, 
the sense of happiness at escaping from its desperate hazards, the danger of 
incurring again the penalties of violated allegiance, the hopes of preferment 
under the re-established Government, the prestige of success crowning the 
national arms, the universal desire to retrieve the personal and pecuniary 
disasters growing out of the war, and to repair so many ruined fortunes, would 
plead with a thousand tongues of eloquence against any new outbreak. It 
must be observed that extending to our defeated rebels the right of suffrage 
could not of itself promote the cause of secession. Voting never did any harm 
to the Union cause. The ordinances of secession, when made, were not worth 
the paper upon which they were written, so far as they of themselves constituted 
part of the insurrectionary programme. These ordinances were unconstitutional 
and void, and would only have subjected all who passed them to ridicule and 
contempt, but for the appeal which was made to arms in their support. 

It was not voting but arms that made secession formidable. Every secessionist 
will comprehend that when the present rebellion is put down, that to elect 
secessionists to office again, and re-enact secession ordinances would be sheer 
nonsense, unless supported by a military and naval power greater than that 
which is now or has been in the field. But where is such a power in such a case 
to be raised up for them? 

If this Government, in the miserable condition in which Mr. Buchanan left it, 
shall be able to sustain itself, and finally to grind into powder the stupendous 
fabric of organized treason confronting Mr. Lincoln, in March, 1861, what will 
secessionists think of its power to cope with treason disorganized and unarmed? 

That the present rebellion can be effectually put down, and that the seces- 
sionists will undertake to renew the contest, unless driven to despair, is to all 
human reason the most improbable of results. 

But if, as assumed, secession is not voting, but fighting, why should any man 
who means to fight renew his allegiance. Every such man can more successfully 
maintain his purpose of fighting without renewing his allegiance than with it. 
If the secessionists shall contemplate revolutionizing government by arms, and 
have the power to do anything in that way how will disfranchisement prevent 
them from carrying out this purpose? If they do not mean to resort again to arms 
when the present effort is exhausted how is it possible for them, by mere voting, 
to put down a Government which their utmost physical force failed to destroy ? 

A mere potent argument perhaps than any yet mentioned is that the restora- 



16 

tion of (he Government of the United States in the revolting sections cannot be 
effected wholly by force. It is admitted that in the business of restoration 
force, power of arms, has been a proper and judicious means well adapted to 
an end. But it cannot do the whole work. Unless some old chord of affection can 
be touched ; unless the interest of the Southern people can be made to hin-e 
on restoration ; unless they can be made to see their happiness and prosperity 
in it; unless their nobler and better aspirations can be gratified by it, they will 
never take part in the work of reconstruction. To suppose they will is to sup- 
pose them to be destitute of all the motives to human action. Say to the rebel 
masses that they are not to vote, not to hold office, not to have the least 
influence in the political future of their country, and you take away from them 
every inducement to join you in reconstruction. Nay, you do more than this : 
you make them tenfold more than ever your enemies. They would see them- 
selves reduced to the condition of mere serfs and vassals— their liberties 
destroyed, their persons degraded. Under such circumstances nothing could be 
expected from them but feelings of the bitterest hatred and revenge toward 
your Government. They would no longer recognize a mild fraternal Government 
which could forgive them their past offences, and look after their future 
interests, but an iron despotism, breathing the spirit of oppression and 
vengeance; a Government which they would not cease to curse, and teach their 
children to curse with their earliest and their latest breath. And every motive 
which could stimulate the souls of men would urge them to renewed resistance 
to its authority. The question would not longer be whether they would not 
find -their interest in a renewed allegiance, but whether they could possibly be 
worse off by continued opposition. Under such circumstances it would become 
necessary to garrison, and hold by arms, indefinitely, the seceding States. 
And this it would be found impossible to do. The country to be thus held 
indefinitely is too extensive; the population too great; the expense too 
enormous. The idea of holding by arms, in this way, the Southern States, is a 
flat absurdity. 

From the time in which such a policy shall be adopted, the whole issue 
between the Government and the rebels will be changed. The question will no 
longer be whether the rebels shall submit to the Government of the United 
States, but whether they shall continue to be the victims of an insufferable 
oppression. The humane, the intelligent, and the just, everywhere, would pity 
their misfortunes. Peace would be impossible. The sympathies of the nations, 
hitherto unmoved, would now be enlisted warmly in their favor ; and a contest, 
new in all its features, and just in its pretensions, would spring up from the 
ashes of a groundless and infamous rebellion. 

Those who advocate Mr. Ashley's policy commit only one error, but that is a 
tremendous error for Americans to make. They deny the only principle on 
which rests the system of American liberty : That principle that man is 
capable of self-government. That though he may go astray, his intelligence 
and virtue will lead him back to the right path. That on the whole he can 
discern in what direction his real interest lies, and that before the great bar 
of human reason " error is harmless when truth is left free to combat it." 

The genius of Republican institutions does not teach us that citizens will never 
forget their duty, will never, from promptings of ambition, or more unpremed- 
iated transports of passion, rebel against a good Government. Nor did the 
founders of the Government of the United States look for any such perfection, 
either in their work or the people who were to live under it. They looked for 
the very reverse. They knew that the reverse would certainly take place 



17 

The history of the Confederation, the call for the Convention at Annapolis, 
the circumstances which led to the Convention of 1789, the debates of that 
Convention, the Constitution itself, all prove that the probability of rebellion 
was continually before their eyes. 

In no one instance did the great and good men who laid the foundation 
of our government intimate that it should ever be proper to disfranchise large 
masses of the people. It was their especial business to provide against that 
very thing. In that consisted the bane of all the abitrary governments in 
the world — the disfranchisement of the popular masses. It was their special 
mission to see that it never took place here. They therefore prefaced the 
Constitution they made with this plain declaration : 

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more special 
Union, establish justice, insure domestic equality, provide for the common 
defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberry to 
ourselves and our posterity' do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 
United States of America. " 

When that declaration was put forth, there was not a single American 
Constitution which did not declare as the fundamental principal of liberty 
that the people are the source of all political power. There is no room to doubt 
that a proposition in 1789, or any time since, prior to these troubles, to 
authorize the majority of the people to disfranchise the minority for rebellion 
or any otther offence, would have been received with unmixed astonishment by 
the whole American people. 

If any thing is certain it is that the statesmen of 1789 would have considered 
such a measure at war with every feature of their system. If is quite as 
reasonable to believe that they contemplated, in the event of any wicked insur- 
rection that might arise, the creation of a King and Queen and a hereditary 
nobility. They did indeed provide guards, against popular faction and they 
deemed them sufficient. They required the people to delegate the law making 
power to their representatives. They created two separate branches of the 
Legislature and limited them by different tenures of office, that they might 
operate as checks on each other. They appointed one Executive Department, 
whose negative was salutary in controlling inconsiderate legistation; they set 
up a judiciary to dispense justice according to law, and to nullify unconstitutional 
enactments. They inculcated the duty of spreading knowledge among the people. 
% They endued the government they made with the awful prerogative of arms to 
,J repress when needful the spirit of insurrection. But they never entertained 
the idea that the government thus made was the peculiar property of any party, 
loyal, or disloyal, or that large masses of the people or large sections of the 
country were to be excluded from its blessings for any offence they should 
commit. The liberty which they set up, they intended to be perpetual. They 
declared it absolutely unalienable. 

If this doctrine of popular disfranchisement is to be admitted into our system 
the whole theory of Republican Government vanishes 

" Like the baseless fabric of a vision." 

If it has been discovered that four or five millions of the people of the United 
States have become so bad that they are not fit to enjoy the common rights of 
men ; so corrupt that when they offer to renew their allegiance they cannot be 

3 



18 

trusted; so anti-republican they should not be suffered to return to their duty 
if they would ; such predestinated criminals that repentance and reformation 
are not to be thought of as things possible with them ; so fallen as not to be any 
more within the reach even of religious influence ; what assurance have we 
that the residue of our population may not ere long fall into the same category ? 
And what is that solid foundation on which the patriot can longer rest his hope 
of maintaining free institutions here or any where upon the face of the earth ? 

Directly opposed to this is the policy of the President, if it be proper to 
assume that the President has any settled policy of his own. However, his 
amnesty proclamation of the 8th of December, 1863, speaks this emphatic 
language to the masses of the rebel population: "Lay down your arms, 
renew your allegiance to your country, by solemn oath ; submit yourselves to 
her laws, and be freemen again." 

Here is the language of intelligent statesmanship ; a voice of wisdom speaking 
from the experience of ages; a voice of humanity which breathes compassion 
even for such as have sinned, and sinned deeply ; a voice of hope to miserable 
and ruined men, and, altogether, the noblest measure of justice which circum- 
stances allow to an insulted and outraged Government. 

In this wise and liberal policy of the President, should he not be diverted 
from it, there is more hope of restoration than there is in millions of bayonets 
without it. Between the two policies, that of the President and that of his 
Radical supporters, the nation is to choose. How much depends upon it ! 

In bringing these remarks to a conclusion, it is believed the writer cannot do 
the reader a better service than by reminding him of the advice of the great 
Montesquieu, touching the case before us : 

He says : " Great punishments and consequently great changes cannot take 
place without investing some citizens with exorbitant power. It is, therefore, 
more advisable in this case to exceed in lenity than severity ; to banish but few 
rather than many, and to leave them their estates, instead of making a vast 
number of confiscations. Under the pretence of avenging the Republic, the avengers 
would establish tyranny. Their business n not to destroy the rebel but the 
rebellion. They ought to return as quick as possible to the usual track of the 
Government, in which every one is protected by the laws, and no one injured." 

The Count de Gasparin, by far the ablest writer who has espoused our cause 
in Europe, has, from the first, defended the Union side, with a pen so eloquent 
and so profound as to entitle him to the gratitude of every true American. His 
position, his talents, his knowledge and his virtues, command for his opinions on 
American questions the very greatest respect. As a Frenchman he had been 
able to add to the philosophical deductions of a great intellect the benefits of an 
actual experience amid scenes of revolution only recently known in our own 
country. It will be remarked how accurately his views, anxiously promulgated 
for our guidance in the present case, accord with those above quoted from the 
"Spirit of Laws." He regarded the "re-establishment" of the Union a 
delicate but not unhopeful task ; and argued that " political liberty " would 
be found "a powerful means therein." Speaking of the people of the United 
States he says : 

"For nearly a century, the sum told, they have lived together under the 
same Constitution, with the same destinies, by no means devoid of greatness. 
Su:h a history is a bond. More than one glorious memory, more than one 



19 

illustrious name, causes the hearts of men to beat alike in the North and South. 
Far from discovering there two people naturally hostile, I cannot help seeing a 
single people, whose unity seems founded on indestructible bases. Not only is 
there unity of language, unity of origin, unity of religion, but it would be 
difficult to find, apart from slavery, any cause of antagonism. The solidarity 
of interests is evident. There is no rivalry. The agricultural South completes 
the manufacturing North. The rich cultures of the South have need to prosper 
off the capital of the North — the entre-ports of the North, the vast commerce of 
the North." * * * " I have spoken of political liberty. A 

powerful means will also be found therein for a return to the Union. After the 
defeat of the South there must be neither victors nor vanquished. It is the 
admirable privilege of free countries that the words subjugation and conquest are 
terms destitute of meaning. A conquest would leave deep wounds, which it 
would be very difficult to heal. The suppression of a rebellion leave no such 
traces. After, as before it, the independence of the States is maintained, their 
Representatives sit in Congress, parties contend for their votes, and their 
influence is exercised over the general direction of affairs." 
" The first condition of the re-establishment of the Union is that the North 
victorious [I suppose this hypothesis] give proof of generosity. No refusals, 
no recriminations, no inequalities, even temporary. Think no more of the past. 
Make haste to blot out those measures of confiscation which grieve your friends. 
Do not say to yourselves that the rebellious South has done the same." 

" To re-establish union is more difficult than to destroy it. It needs more 
forgetfulness of injuries, more magnanimity and more virtue. " 

The "America before Europe" had not been issued from the press when 
the Count De Gasparin had passed away from earth. So that these solemn 
warnings may be said to speak to us from the grave of the departed sage. 
Shall we heed them ? Possibly. Probably not. The time is one of exaspera- 
tion. All feel and few reflect. In two States a majority of the peopie has 
disfranchised the minority, expelled them from the temple of liberty and 
forbid their return. 

In the next Congress Mr. Ashley may have friends enough to pass his uncon- 
stitutional enactments, and apply the same measures of proscription to the 
millions of the Southern people. We shall sse. 

If the people of the United States shall deliberately commit themselves to 
such a deed, the fact will do more than any event which has yet transpired to 
place a definite value on all popular institutions ; and to dispel an agreeable 
illusion which, for a long while, has engaged the imaginations of men. 



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